Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The (almost) perfect alarm clock, April 16, 2008
After having tried several "atomic time" clock radios and alarm clocks, I have finally found what is for me a nearly perfect unit.
The clock easily synchs up with the time signal from WWVB, even during the daytime, when many other units can't (assuming you orient the antenna properly).
The digitally tuned radio works well on both AM and FM, being one of the few radios that I have tried that doesn't get swamped by the nearby radio towers.
A big plus on the alarm clock feature is that you can set the alarm to a particular station and volume, and then go to sleep with the radio set for a different station and volume. So you can go to sleep with a classical station on a low volume and wake up to a news station on a very loud volume.
Even without the HiGlo turned on, the display is very high contrast and easy to read in even moderately dim light.
I happen to prefer that the HiGlo isn't on full-time, since I try to avoid light pollution in my bedroom at night (several medical studies have shown surprising health differences that seem to be related to the light levels during sleep!).
Some people have complained that the surface touch controls are too sensitive. I have not found that to be the case. The unit locks out the controls after one minute, so you have to touch a control twice in order activate it. As long as the clock is left on a table or dresser, this prevents accidental changes quite adequately. The only way this could be a problem was if someone was to pick up the clock and hold it in their hand such that they were bumping one of the controls.
Only three minor changes that prevent this from being perfect.
The first is that when set to wake to buzzer instead of radio, the clock only beeps for two minutes (albeit quite loudly in an increasingly annoying pattern) before giving up. Since I wake to radio, which plays for two hours, this isn't a problem for me.
Another feature that could use improvement would be a switch to toggle the HiGlo between its current behavior and being on full time (although this would throw off the accuracy of the inside temperature reading due to heat generation).
The only thing on the unit that I could call a real flaw is the lack of having a backup battery. The unit will hold its settings for several seconds during a brief outage, but if the outage lasts longer than that all settings (saved stations, alarm time) are lost. The clock will reset itself from WWVB once power is restored, but you will have to reprogram your favorite stations and reset your wake-up time.
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16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
OK...but far from perfect, October 10, 2007
While the features overall are pretty neat and this is a nice, compact design that is perfect for a night stand, I am finding that for a bedroom alarm clock it doesn't work so well. I thought that the "HiGlo(tm)" back-lighting was always on, making it easy enough to read in the dark, but that is not the case. The back lighting only comes on after fumbling to find one of the "touch technology" buttons that, of course, are also not lit up. For a desk clock, this would be perfect. For a bedside clock, find one that is visible in the dark...
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Terrible, January 10, 2009
The atomic clock didn't sync up after 48 hours on standby (the manual recommends at least 24), the temperature reader is off by 5 degrees, and the weather forecast promises only 70% accuracy (which means I check my computer for a *real* forecast each morning anyway). So what you have is a self-setting clock that you have to manually set yourself, a thermometer that you have to mentally adjust downward by 5 degrees, and a forecaster that provides a rough but useless idea of the day's weather. If the above is not enough to dissuade you, consider this: (1) the touch screen buttons are absolutely useless in the morning when your hand-eye coordination is at its worst, (2) the clock's "snooze" button annoyingly becomes a "sleep" button after several minutes of radio/ringing, (3) the radio reception on this in my area is worse than any other radio I have tried, and (4) as others have mentioned, the clock is invisible when the lights are off.
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